A Russian lawyer has been arrested by authorities in Poland days after he was accused of organizing attacks on several allies of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
Lawyer Anatoly Blinov was arrested in Poland on Thursday, according to the Polish prosecutor’s office. The day before the arrest, a report published by the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FBK) named Blinov as a suspect in organized attacks against several of the opposition leader’s allies.
The Anti-Corruption Foundation, set up in 2011 by Navalny to investigate high-level Russian officials, said that attacks on other figures in the opposition movement were all planned by Blinov with the help of Leonid Nevzlin, the former co-head of Russian oil company YUKOS.
Leonid Volkov, Ivan Zhdanov, and the wife of economist Maxim Mironov, all known associates of Navalny, were attacked across the world, even in places typically considered outside Russia’s sphere of influence, including Argentina and Geneva.
Alexei Navalny addresses demonstrators during a rally in Moscow, July 20, 2019. A Russian lawyer has been arrested after he was accused of organizing attacks on several allies of the late Russian opposition leader.
MAXIM ZMEYEV/AFP via Getty Images
The reason for Blinov’s arrest has not yet been made clear by Polish authorities. Newsweek contacted the Polish Ministry of Justice and the Kremlin for more information.
In response to the investigation, Nevzlin denied all involvement in the attacks, saying: “I have nothing to do with any attacks on people, in any form.
“I don’t see much point in discussing the details of this ‘leak’ concocted in Moscow. Let an independent investigation first evaluate these so-called ‘materials’ and, if the investigation deems it necessary, then a court in a democratic country. I am convinced that justice will confirm the absurdity and complete groundlessness of the accusations against me.”
Who was Alexei Navalny?
Alexei Navalny was the former leader of the Russian opposition and a longstanding critic of Putin’s leadership. He once accused the Russian leader of trying to poison him while he was on a flight in 2020.
Navalny temporarily took political refuge in Germany, before returning to Russia to continue his campaigning. In 2021, he was jailed on major fraud and contempt of court charges, which were widely viewed as politically motivated. He was sent held in an Arctic penal colony to serve out a 19-year jail sentence.
In February this year, Navalny died in prison at the age of 47, as reported by Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service. The death was viewed with suspicion by authorities across the world.
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